Smiling Faces...

The shadow knows. The rest of us have to guess.

©Bryan Zepp Jamieson
http://www.mytown.ca/zepp
12/22/07

There was a weird story in the paper today. The NY Times reported that J. Edgar Hoover, the former director of the FBI from 1924 until his death in 1972, had put forth a plan to the President to suspend habeas corpus and arrest some 12,000 people, nearly all of them American citizens, and hold them indefinitely without trial.

At first glance, the story didn’t seem surprising. Everyone knows the lurid stories about the director and his nearly sociopathic vendettas against any and all people whose politics he disliked, his bureaucratic machinations, and his utter contempt for the rights of suspects. Nearly every bad thing we believed about him in the late sixties turned out to be true, and what’s more, he used to dress up in women’s clothes and swan about his house.

But this wasn’t the corrupt, vicious bloated bureaucrat of 1969 who managed to appall even Richard Nixon. This was the young, svelte, super-patriotic J. Edgar Hoover of 1950, before the McCarthy era and the use of red-baiting by the fascist right to get back into power in America.

The Korean police action (it was never officially a war) had just started, and Hoover wanted to use that as an excuse. His goal was stated baldly enough: “In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus.” President Truman’s response, if any, was unknown, but the proposal went no further.

In those days, Hoover was a hero. Kids wanted to grow up to be G-men, “The Untouchables,” and fight mobsters and gangsters and protect and preserve the American way. Hoover was considered America’s finest cop.

He was a hero. He was a patriot. He was America.

And he wanted to throw 12,000 in prison without trial, just for having politics he disapproved of.

The hardest lesson for people to learn (and most never really do, no matter how many times they hear it) is that evil often comes dressed as a noble goal, a kindly person, a resolute and patriotic leader.

Even the Bible warns of this. The antichrist will supposedly have an “aspect pleasing to the eye.” Lucifer was the most beautiful of the angels. (Of course, as Prometheus, his role was evil only to shamans who know that knowledge is good only if it is controlled and hidden).

It’s odd. People will believe that J. Edgar Hoover was a noble patriot who decayed into a petty and vindictive tyrant in his later years. That the inner, nasty Hoover had actually been there all along puts him much more in line with normal human nature. He didn’t BECOME a dirtbag. He always was one. He just had good PR, was all.

Call it the second law of behavioral dynamics, or moral inertia. People who are good tend to remain good, and those who are bad tend to remain bad. (The first law, of course, is “Always count your change”).

Knowing that the very vilest characters often come across as absolute saints, I tend to regard well-meaning politicians with deep suspicion. Unfortunately, politics doesn’t tend to attract the type of people we should have as leaders, and instead we get the types who want power, money, or both. Mark Twain once remarked that the only person who should be eligible for the position of President of the United States should be someone who was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the office. Anyone who WANTED to be president, he reasoned, should be automatically disqualified.

I regard Obama with a certain amount of suspicion. He’s too good to be true, and at least one friend, who has had occasion to talk to him face to face a couple of times, has warned me of a much darker, colder personality lurking behind the sunny delight facade. I have enough respect for my friend’s instincts for his warning to give me pause. I may WANT Obama to be the real deal, but I’m willing to entertain the notion that he is not.

I tend to feel a lot more comfortable with a politician whose vices are known, and controllable. Take Bill Clinton for instance. Couldn’t keep his trouser snake where it belonged, would tell fibs to get out of tight spots, and you needed to watch him in negotiations because he would give away more than he needed to. And by and large, he was a damned good president. You could almost say the same, word for word, for FDR.

I note that the adversaries for both men tended to be the type lurking in the shadowy right who give us people like J. Edgar Hoover, dressed up in patriotism and piety, and destructive both to America and to its people.

If I had to choose between entrusting my liberties and life to Clinton, or to J. Edgar, don’t think I would need much time to choose.

This year, we have a couple of idealists in the race who appear to be the real deal but who aren’t getting anywhere. Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are both fine men, and I suspect I would want either as a friend or neighbor. But they aren’t going to fit in the mold of the presidential candidate created by the same people who complain about the quality of the candidates.

Then there are those who are imperfect, but whose imperfections are known and don’t seem to be the types of flaws that would prevent them from being good presidents. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton fit into this category.

Obama, as noted above, is an unknown. He seems to be a rational idealist, which is an attractive blend of traits, except that in the past it’s brought the world Lenin, Herbert Hoover, and Oliver Cromwell. All were men who came to power with the highest of ideals and the political savvy and hardness to fight for those ideals.

On the other hand, that same blend brought us FDR, Clinton, Lincoln and Churchill. I doubt that Obama will be mediocre.

I don’t see a single candidate among the Republicans who is even worth considering. John McCain is an old man who sacrificed all his ethics for one last run. Guiliani is a thug and in all likelihood a gangster. Huckabee is a religious whack, which combined with small town corrupt, is a bad combination. Romney is a glib, empty liar with no core values at all.

So in the field, among the candidates likely to win, I see three with the potential for greatness, five who will be adequate, a few more who will be inadequate but mostly harmless, and six who could be massive disasters, possibly even worse than Putsch.

And if that gives you a higher number than those actually running, don’t be surprised. Some, like Obama, fit quite comfortably in more than one category.

All the more reason to think hard before you choose. It probably won’t help, but you’ll feel better about yourself.